Tubie vs. Wild

It is my fondest hope that one day Grace will cherish these musings from her father and be able to pass them down to her therapist ("See, doc? It really is my parents' fault!!"). You see, not all of them are about tube feeding. Some posts concern the most important questions in life. For example, if you're on a plane that goes down in the Siberian wilderness and only you and one other person survives, who would you want that person to be?

Back when I had cable, I used to watch that Man vs. Wild show on the Discovery Channel. In case you haven't seen it, they drop an ex-British SAS guy into various environments to see if he can survive with no food/water/shelter for a few days. The dude's name is Bear Grylls, which makes me giggle because I think of Wolf Blitzer interviewing Bear Grylls and possibly Tiger Woods, and how can anyone take Wolf Blitzer seriously? His name is W-O-L-F B-L-I-T-Z-E-R. 

Bear (you're welcome, ladies)

Bear (you're welcome, bear enthusiasts)

Wolf (you're welcome)

Anyway, Bear (the person, not the animal) demonstrates how he would go about finding water in the Australian outback or the Sahara, or shelter in the arctic or the tropics, or avoid being eaten by bears (the animal this time) in Canada. I lost interest in the show after it was revealed that Bear spent most of his nights in 5-star resorts, because if I'm going to sit on my ass and watch a guy nearly freeze to death in Patagonia it better be legit, am I right?!?

Every time I watched the show, I would think, What if that were me? How long would I last in the Amazon jungle? Could I jump in a frozen lake just to show people why you shouldn't jump in frozen lakes? Based on my resume, I think you'd want me on your team if your plane goes down. Let's ignore the fact that I'm a tubie for the sake of argument because if my plane goes down in the middle of nowhere right now, it better include a few crates of formula or a Blendtec and a generator. I'm an Eagle Scout so I ought to have loads of camping and outdoor skills. Plus, I went through survival training in Colorado and in eastern Washington. The survival school in Washington included time spent in a mock POW camp. So ideally I could get you through "enhanced interrogation" by terrorists, plan and execute your escape, then allow you to comfortably live off the land while we await rescue.

However, as with many of my other qualities, the reality of Brian Liebenow is much more disappointing than you'd imagine. I've forgotten the vast majority of what I learned in the Boy Scouts, although I have retained the knowledge that Pop Tarts make an excellent meal at any time of day. I remember being able to start a fire using just two matches. Now I'd be lucky to get one going with two lighters and a bottle of lighter fluid. I remember knowing how to tie more than twenty different types of knots. Now, I have a hard time tying my shoes. I got more than twenty merit badges on everything from sailing to basket weaving (really, they had a basket weaving merit badge), but do I remember any of the many skills I learned? No. In fact, Betsy can attest that I know nothing about sailing and she'd be better off in the open ocean with nothing but a life preserver than being alone with me on a sail boat (maybe I'll share that story some other time).

Let me digress for a moment and share one of my favorite metaphors: the island of penguins. Imagine a small island filled, from one side to the other, with penguins. Nothing but penguins, standing around, looking at each other and chirping contentedly. Now imagine that island is your brain and those penguins are thoughts. You see, much like that island, the space in your brain is finite. It can only hold a certain amount of thoughts. When the island is filled to capacity with penguins, every time a new penguin is added, an old penguin falls off and is lost forever. In the same way, every time my brain adds a new thought, old thoughts are forced out.

As the iceberg melts, the penguins fall off. This is like dementia.

So, the knowledge I learned in the Boy Scouts used to frolic gaily about my island with room to spare when I was a know-nothing teenager. Since then, however, my Boy Scout penguins have been replaced by more important penguins from all my time in college and my time sitting in front of the TV watching quality shows like Man vs. Wild.

Therefore, you shouldn't pick me for your deserted island or zombie apocalypse team because of my Eagle Scout rank. But what about all that survival training I got while in the military? Between my freshman and sophomore years at the Academy, I went through a three week program called CST, Combat Survival Training. During the survival portion of the course, we learned how to identify edible plants in the wild; how to consume insects; and how to set snares for small forest animals as a potential source of protein. But, do I remember any of the plants that are safe to eat? Not really. Just the other day, I had a whole mouthful of poison ivy thinking it was lettuce. Just kidding! I actually thought it was marijuana and that is a "high" I won't soon forget. Nothing like what I experienced eating all those poppies in Afghanistan. Why don't they grow more of those here in Tennessee? Seriously, I NEED THOSE FLOWERS!!!!

Mmmmm...Arugula...that's what it is, right?

Also as part of the training, we practiced beating defenseless bunnies to death with clubs, skinning and gutting the cute critters, then making rabbit stew while we played with the corpses of the adorable animals to the amusement of our fellow survivors. Sorry PETA, but it was either the rabbits or us. Maybe you've forgotten about the vicious monsters in this award winning documentary: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg. Yeah, and we didn't have any holy hand grenades either. Just two hands, our wits and each other. And knives. We all had knives. And opposable thumbs. And there's a size difference. Otherwise, we were evenly matched.

During the next portion of our training, we split into teams of three and each team had to navigate from one checkpoint to another in a certain amount of time, all while evading "enemy" capture. So, we had to travel at night, with no flashlights. In heavily wooded, rolling terrain. Fun, right? For my team, picture a smaller, slightly wimpier version of me. His name was Kevin. The other member of our trio was a larger, slightly tougher version of my sister. I don't know her name because I was too afraid to ask. We began our trek in the early evening, while there was still some light in the day. I had the brilliant idea that while it was still light, we should try to get as far as we could toward the next checkpoint without bothering to mask our movements because surely our "enemy" wouldn't be in position or prepared for our lightning speed. Within an hour, we were easily discovered by upperclassmen who were roving around the brush looking for idiotic teams to fall in their laps. As punishment, they put us in a truck and drove us a few extra miles from our next checkpoint. This instantly lowered morale on our fledgling team and significantly lowered Kevin' and Scary_Tough_Girl's assessment of my decision making ability.

I mostly wore pink. Is that why I kept getting caught?

Over the course of three nights of evading enemy capture, we were discovered three more times (this may have been a school record). On one memorable occasion, we were creeping across a field in pitch blackness--FYI, when I say "creeping" I mean Scary_Tough_Girl was creeping while Kevin and I were thrashing noisily like injured bears (the animals, not the person)--when floodlights suddenly blinded us from about 100 feet away. No, Not again!!! Kevin and Scary_Tough_Girl put their hands up, resigned to the fact that we'd been captured, for the umpteenth time. Not me though. I immediately went down in a crouch, hugging my knees in an attempt to look like the surrounding foliage. As the lights came closer, I used my Jedi mind powers to try to confuse the "enemy." I am a tree stump. I am a tree stump. I am a tree stump. Alas, the force was not strong that day. I saw a pair of boots stop right in front of me and a voice said, "What the hell are you doing?!?" By this point, the upperclassmen were through with trucking us farther from our checkpoints. Instead, I think they tried to get us closer because we were such a lost cause. By the end of our three night ordeal, I was dragging 100 yards behind my teammates, wearily putting one foot in front of the other and dreaming of Pizza Hut stuffed-crust pizza (I'd had little to eat other than rabbit stew and poison ivy and stuffed-crust pizza had just been introduced that summer. I was intrigued). Meanwhile, Kevin was complaining loudly of blisters while crashing through the woods, not caring about recapture, and Scary_Tough_Girl was looking at both of us with a mixture of disgust and revulsion.

So, do you want me as your survival partner now, in the event you get stranded in the Himalayas? I don't think so, unless you're confidant in your own abilities and you look at me as a potential food source.  

Bravo! Cucina Italiana

On December 29, we joined some great friends for dinner to celebrate my birthday and the ten year anniversary of the day I found out my cancer was in remission. 

It seems like whatever hardship we've suffered through in the past, if given enough time, we can look back on it with fondness. 

"Remember those college all-nighters and being stressed that we might fail the exam, drop out of school, and be forced to live in disgrace with our parents for the next 60 years? What I wouldn't give to live through that again!"

"Remember freshman year of the Academy, when we got screamed at because our closet hangers weren't correctly spaced apart? Good times. Good times."

"Remember living in a mud hut in Afghanistan, and being afraid camel spiders were lurking under the toilet seats of the porta-potties? Those were the days, eh?"

"Remember when I was tube feeding and I managed to spray food on the ceiling? Oh wait, that just happened. Maybe still too soon."

Of course there are plenty of exceptions. I hear about traumatic events on the news all the time that I highly doubt the people living through them will look back on fondly. I doubt I'll ever look at my jaw surgeries with nostalgia or some of my other radiation side-effects--although those are still happening. If I miraculously regained the ability to swallow, would I look back with envy on my years with a feeding tube? Maybe, if I'm eating brussel sprouts or sardines.

"Mmmmm...Brussel Sprouts..."

The thing about going through something like boot camp, or deployments, or cancer treatment is that while it's happening you often don't have to worry about anything else. All the other stuff gets taken care of by family or friends so you can focus on your mission at hand. So when you get home and you're confronted with bills, home repair, lawn maintenance, or taking care of the kids you look back and reminisce about the time when you didn't have to worry about all the minutiae of life. This is why some guys who've been in prison for extended periods are so afraid to be released back to the real world. Or why some guys who've gone through multiple wartime deployments choose to go back for another 12-18 months. Life is so much simpler. Just eat, sleep, and go out on patrol.

They just don't know how lucky they are.

Another nice thing about living through traumatic events is that they seem to bring out the best in people. While I was deployed to Uzbekistan in 2001, I got a package full of letters from a class of elementary school students in a town in Michigan I've never been to. Then, when I was going through chemotherapy while stationed in California, those same students (in 7th grade by this time) found out about it, and they each wrote me again. 

Also, when I was going through chemo,  some of the guys in my squadron got together and shaved their heads for me. 

The women shaved their legs in my honor too

There were countless acts of kindness from friends, family and perfect strangers. Lawns mowed, gift baskets, cooked meals, household repairs, hospital visits, shoulders to cry on, too many to go through. I'm thankful for cancer because it's made me see the grace and benevolence in all of us. 

It's been ten years now since chemo. It wasn't nearly as bad as radiation, I had a great oncologist, lived on the central coast of California, I had a supportive job that let me take all the time off I needed. My insurance paid for all my treatment. Numerous friends and family came to visit me. It's so easy to look back on this with rose-tinted glasses and forget about the worrying, IVs, chemo side effects, sleepless nights, waiting for test results and just being in pain in one form or another.

Big sis is shaving my head because I didn't want to watch my hair fall out

My favorite oncologist, Dr. Lossing

3rd Chemo Treatment. The Doc liked collecting movie posters

Renewing our vows for 2nd anniversary

So, ten years have passed since I heard the news that my cancer was in remission. It was also my 39th birthday. To celebrate, we invited our good friends, the Friedman's, out to eat at an Italian place called Bravo! Cucina Italiana. Whenever you say the name, don't you want to wave your arms around and use an Italian accent, or is that just me?

BRAVO!

I'd never been there before, but Betsy had. They have a gluten-free menu. Even better, they had a bar with T.V. channels showing the Broncos game!!

As usual, Betsy talked to a manager on the phone before we arrived and explained how I blend up my meals and eat through a feeding tube. The restaurant staff were very accommodating and had no problems with the Blendtec. If I could taste my food, I'd have thought the Gluten-Free menu had few options. Just three types of salad; a salmon dish, chicken dish, and filet mignon; along with three pasta dishes. I guess that's not so bad. It's nice that so many restaurants these days are making an effort to adjust to the growing need to reduce gluten. 

I got the "Chicken Griglia," which included whipped sweet potatoes and roasted vegetables. I explained to our waitress that she needed to add it to the Blendtec container with about 1.5 cups of water. Then, just hit the Soup/Syrup/Fondue button and let the blender do its magic. 

Grace is jealous because I get smoothies all the time

Everyone enjoyed their meal. I thought it was very filling. Bravo! is definitely a place we'll visit again!!

Our good friends, Adam and Jennifer, along with their awesome son, Sammy. Happy Remission Day!!!

Alcohol

I have a confession to make. I don't drink alcohol very often. I know, I know, I've featured it multiple times in my posts. I joke about it often enough that it probably seems like I may have a drinking problem. The truth is alcohol lowers my immune defense. When I drink excessively, I typically end up feeling under the weather for days afterward. When I first got my feeding tube, I would have a glass of wine every time I went out to eat. I thought, "My family gets to eat in front of me. I'll at least have some merlot so I'm not just sitting here." Also, I went through a phase where I drank a glass of red wine every night because I thought it was healthier. Maybe it is healthier, but I seemed to get sick more often during that phase. I don't know if it was the wine or something else. Regardless, I only drink occasionally these days.

Don't get me wrong, I used to drink excessively--before cancer. Alcohol was strictly forbidden at the Air Force Academy during my time there. So, of course, whenever cadets were out at clubs on the weekends, many of us drank irresponsibly. We weren't allowed to have cars until our junior year. We also had more freedom to go off campus on weekends our last two years. I could actually leave the base on weekdays my senior year. I know this sounds bizarre for those of you who went to "normal" colleges. 

I have plenty of stories I could share of me behaving like a drunken idiot. Outside of a club in Colorado Springs, I urinated on a bouncer's car (right in front of the bouncer) and had to be dragged away by my friends before an altercation ensued. At a bar in Breckenridge on a weekend ski trip, I tried to start a fight with someone over a pool game. I'm a pretty small guy and I've never been in fight so I'm pretty sure I would be on the losing end of any bar fights, even if I was sober. After getting back to my dorm room after one Friday night of revelry, I laid down for a bit, then got out of bed, walked to our closet and unzipped my pants with the intention of using the closet as a toilet (luckily my roommate stopped me). My roommate's bed was on the opposite side of the dorm room from mine and one night I laid down and promptly projectile vomited from my bed all the way across to where he was laying on his bed (he swears this happened). 

There are other stories, some I'm still too ashamed to share, but the worst thing about my drunken forays? I don't remember any of them. When I drink excessively, I black out. The only reason I know these things is because my friends related them to me the next day, during the hangover where I would swear never to drink again.

I suppose my reader(s) will divide into two camps here. Some will probably be aghast that I behaved so immaturely, while others will think, "That's nothin'! I did way worse at that age; in fact, I'm drunk right now!!" I tend to think more about my daughter now and the way I'd like her to behave at that age. Looking back, I can't help but think there were much better ways to spend my weekends. I lived in Colorado, so couldn't I have gone hiking or camping more? I was just a college kid, so I suppose drunken revelry is bound to happen. But now, post-cancer, all I can think is how unhealthy it is. Also, I could've imbibed more moderately so I could at least remember the fun times with my friends. Grace, if you're reading this, I think the unfortunate truth is that a young woman who drinks until she blacks out is in much more danger than a young man. I know you're already smarter than I am. I'd say you're more mature, but you really like to say "poop" and "underwear" a lot. My advice is to drink in moderation and be careful of the friends you surround yourself with. 

This won't be an issue anyway because we're sending you to a convent in a few years.

So, speaking of alcohol, I had a chance to drink some moonshine over Christmas. As I said in my last post, the family was down in Alabama at Betsy' parent's house. They had a jar (it's actually in a jar; look at the photo!!) of moonshine in the fridge. They were a little sketchy on the details of where they procured this alcohol. Something about "state liquor laws," "contraband," "highly illegal," "felony offense," blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda I don't listen to half of what they say anyway. I bravely volunteered to give the stuff a try. My mother-in-law, Susan, poured a splash in a cup for me to dump down my tube. 

Nothing screams "high quality" like a mason jar

I thought I wouldn't feel anything from this portion. It wasn't enough for a shot, probably barely half a shot. I have noticed that I feel the effects from alcohol much faster through my tube. I'm sure a big reason for this is that when I drank wine, I wouldn't drain the glass in one swallow, which is essentially what I do when I pour it in my tube.

So I dump that tiny mouthful into my tube thinking that I would have a little more after but WHOA! I could feel it right away!! Wow, that stuff was STRONG! It must've been rubbing alcohol they were trying to disguise as liquor. I'm surprised it didn't dissolve my feeding tube.

So, yeah, fifteen years ago I would've tried to drain the jar. Probably by the third sip I would black out, act like a complete moron, completely embarrassing myself. Here's proof that I AM somewhat wiser than I was before!!! I can learn from my idiotic youth after all! Time to celebrate with a drink...

Christmas With the Dog

We spend most Christmases with Betsy's parents at their home in Alabama. They used to have dogs, but since they moved into their new house, they decided that dogs aren't worth the hassle of cleaning messes. So, we were very happy when they told us we could bring our dog, Aspen, down to stay over Christmas. The last time I brought Aspen down, the first thing he did when he got in their house was run into the living room and pee on their carpet. He NEVER wets in our house. In fact, he has a 50-gallon bladder. I think he could go for days without peeing, only bothering to do so when he's marking his territory. We decided this must be a fluke. He only sprayed their carpet because it was a new place, he smelled the cat, and he wanted to claim ownership. So, we brought him down, again, and what does he do? Pees on the carpet, right in front of the Christmas tree. THEN, a couple days later, he sneaks in Betsy' parent's bedroom and pees right in front of the cat!!! My father-in-law, Larry, didn't know about that last one until he read it just now, so I've ensured that Aspen is never invited back to Alabama.

He seemed to have such a good rapport with their cat

During our stay, Betsy, Katie (Hey Brian, watcha doin?) and I took Aspen for a walk in the woods near their neighborhood. He's been with the family a while now; I like to think he's developed a certain bond with us. So I decided to let him off leash. This isn't the first time I've let him off. I've set him free in a park near Knoxville when we're all alone and he's stayed with me the whole way (over a mile's walk) around a big loop.

An excellent walking companion

So, we're in the woods in Alabama and we let him go.  At first, he sticks close. Then, pretty soon, I guess he decided we were going too slow and he sets off, quickly disappearing in the thick underbrush.

At first, we were pretty calm, "Aspen! Come here, boy! We're going this way now!" Then, we start getting a little more panicky, "ASPEN!!! COME!!!" This type of dog, Great Pyrenees, is pretty difficult to train and we haven't had him that long, so calling his name and asking him to come is a pointless exercise, but we do it anyway. We fan out in the woods. "ASPEN!!!!" Those woods were a nightmare, by the way. Brambles everywhere. At certain points, the thorny weeds were so thick, I just had to lead with my right side (the side that can't feel pain), put my head down, and bull my way through the nasty stuff. "ASPEN!!!!" At first, we were within earshot of each other, but after a while, I realized I couldn't hear Katie or Betsy any more. I had my phone, and I knew approximately where I was, but the girls didn't have phones (we're so smart about thinking ahead). "ASPEN!!!!" I just kept pushing my way through the brush. I'm getting cuts up and down my right side from the thorns. No sign of the dog. No sign of anybody. "ASPEN!!!!" I finally force my way through to a large clearing. I can see a lake through the woods ahead. Can't see anyone else. Did Aspen just see a good chance to escape and leave me for good?? We saw a deer out this way on our walk yesterday. Maybe he set off after its scent. "ASPEN!!!!"

My phone rings. It's Sarah, Betsy's youngest sister, who is back at the house.

"Brian? Aspen's back at the house."

"Holy crap! How did he get there?"

"I don't know! Katie came in with him. She's hysterical."

"OK. Where's Betsy?"

"OH! I don't know. I guess she's still out there!"

"OK." I start walking back. "BETSY!!!!!" I push my way up to the ridge where I thought Betsy was looking for Aspen. Pretty soon, I make my way out to a rocky edge where the ground slopes sharply down about 500 feet to a highway. No sign of Betsy. "BETSY!!!!" I try making my way back toward the house along the ridge, but the thorns are too thick. I'd need a machete to get through this mass of prickly brambles that seemed to only exist to cause me pain. Finally, I give up on that route, backtrack, and set out the way I came. 

"BETSY!!!!"

About halfway home, I get another call--this time from Betsy.

"Babe? Where are you?" she said.

"I was out here looking for you!"

"I'm ok. Aspen found his way back."

Yep, turns out while the three of us were bumbling around in the Alabama brush, Aspen circled back around and went straight to my in-law's doorstep. He was standing at the door and barking for them to let him in when Katie got back to get her phone. I'd only taken him for a walk once before around a neighborhood where all the houses look essentially the same. So he just lets his nose do the work to have a laugh and make us two-legged folk look like idiots. 

This image may be hard to understand, but it took me forever to create so I'm leaving it in here

Well played, Aspen, well played.